an editorial by Dave Baumeister County Correspondent
WOW! It is probably never a good thing when a newspaper is at a loss for words, but “WOW!” is the first thing that comes to mind.
Again, this year, the Minnehaha County Commission voted unanimously to name four newspapers as their “official publications.” Why is this such a big deal? The county has gone beyond state requirements, which say a county doesn’t have to name more than three newspapers as “legal publications.”
So once again this year, the Garretson Gazette will be publishing all county public notices for our readers (as will the Brandon-Valley Journal, Minnehaha Messenger and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader).
In a time when so many people think the only news is what they find on the Internet, and in a time when people are learning that much of what they see on the Internet can fall into the category of “fake news,” our
county commissioners are leading the way in seeing that Minnehaha citizens are kept informed.
In the Gazette, readers will find the exact minutes of the meetings, learn about land and surplus property auctions, legal disputes, and more.
As a case in point, at the Jan. 7 Minnehaha County meeting, commissioners were asked to become the “official” government entity on record so a group at Wall Lake could start applying for grants in the hopes of building a walking/biking trail around the lake.
A person from that area spoke up about work she had done to show that 47 Wall Lake area residents were totally against the trail, and she claimed that at least one of those people had never heard anything about the proposal.
If this is true, that person only had to look as far as his local newspaper, the Minnehaha Messenger in Harford, to read the two extensive articles written about the project and see the photograph showing the area being looked at for the trail.
People hearing from a person against the project would just have the thoughts of that person on which to base their own conclusions. And only looking at an issue from one side usually leads to poor decisions.
Now, we are not writing in favor or against a bike trail on the other side of the county, but what we are talking about is how local newspapers give people the chance to be informed about what is going on in their communities.
And by their recent vote in naming legal newspapers, the Minnehaha County Commission is encouraging the same thing.
So, today, when so many people are looking at governing bodies and scratching their heads, we get to look at the Minnehaha Commissioners and, again, say, “WOW”!
Addendum from the editor, Garrick Moritz
Yes, and thank you Dave for your work for us and the other communities of Minnehaha County outside Sioux Falls city limits.
I was very pleased that the Commissioners voted to renew all the locally owned newspapers in the county again this year, and as I said at the meeting, it speaks well of them as public servants and their commitment to ideals of American democracy and their support of a free press.
This also helps us to keep Dave as our correspondent. Dave is a long-experienced and award-winning journalist who is at every meeting, and presents our readers with the highlights of county issues that may affect them. (He actually had better attendance at the meetings than a few of the commissioners this past year.)
By SD Law they must publish their minutes and legal notices in three newspapers in the county, but they went above and beyond for the second year in a row and named 4! These newspapers must meet the qualifica
tions of a legal newspaper under state law, with a minimum number of subscribers, etc. Traditionally, only the largest papers get this designation. Larger media companies have bought up, shut down, or edged out smaller mom and pop outfits like me; to get a bigger slice of the pie for ad sales and legal notices for a region.
So the commissioners actively making sure that the smaller, more rural communities of the county are designated as official newspapers is a pretty big deal. It shows that they want to include the most people possible in local self-governance and that they recognize that the folks in the Garretson area vote, and want to be informed.
I’m also very heartened that we are not the only Minnehaha County community to benefit. The advent of the Brandon Valley Journal and the Dell Rapids City Journal, brand new small town papers that didn’t exist when I started here, shows that the SD citizen is hungry for good local news sources.
